The Nordic Culture Fund

The Nordic Culture Fund was established by the Nordic Council through a separate agreement between the governments of the Nordic countries in 1966 and began its work in 1967.

Mission

The aim of The Nordic Culture Fund is to promote the cultural cooperation between Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the self governing areas the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and the Aland Islands. The Fund’s sphere of activities includes Nordic cultural cooperation in its entirety, both inside and outside the Nordic countries.

Geographic Focus

Nordic Region but with a strategic focus on wider exchanges on a global level

Programme Areas

At the Nordic Culture Fund, we work to set the direction for the cultural co-operation of the future. In a time of upheaval, when nations draw in to themselves, art and culture can act as a focal point that opens up, creates links and offers new perspectives – both towards ourselves and towards the world we live in. With our funding programmes, partnerships and cultural policy work, we therefore aim to bring arts and culture into new forms of dialogue, and provide a flexible frameworks for developing new collaborations and initiatives.

The Nordic Culture Fund was established as an autonomous organisation shortly after the Second World War, with the aim of working internationally in the Nordic region and beyond. The Fund may therefore be regarded as a public player with independent funds, the distribution of which does not derive from directly politically-controlled decisions. This position is an important startingpoint for the Fund’s work.

Since its inception in 1966, the Fund’s main mission has been to grant financial support. We are constantly learning more about artistic and cultural life, and the possibilities for practitioners to apply for support. In this way, we ensure that our support is both relevant and targeted.

As a Fund, we are willing to take risks and often support the inception and development phases of new artistic and cultural initiatives and networks. Through our various programmes, we currently provide annual support to around 340 cultural projects that build on and develop international and Nordic co-operation.

As a Nordic organisation, we are anchored in both the political system and in the field of performing arts and culture. We therefore have the opportunity to take an active role in facilitating new networks and acting as a link between different actors.

For several years now, we have also worked to create new contexts for the development of cultural policy at Nordic level. We recognise that the role of art and culture in the welfare society has changed and that there is a need to rethink some of the institutional premises and concepts that have long functioned as the self-evident grammar of cultural policy in the Nordic countries.

When, for example, we enter into partnerships across the boundaries of disciplines, interests and national borders, it is all about making visible, developing and disseminating knowledge of arts and culture so that more people can see and understand the vital role that the arts play in our society.

Primary programme areas:

• Arts & Culture,
• Civil society, Voluntarism & Non-Profit Sector,
• Human/Civil Rights,
• Policy development